Jamaica: His Own Man | TIME

Army helicopters skimmed the rooftops of the sweltering capital of Kingston and armed troops patrolled the streets as Jamaica underwent its first general election since independence. But, despite earlier violence, election day passed without the explosion of terror that the country had feared. As the results trickled in, Donald Burns Sangster, 55, paced the carpeted wooden floors of Vale Royal, his huge, frame official residence as Acting Prime Minister of Jamaica. He nervously tuned in a radio in one room, moved to TV monitors in another, paced among a noisy jumble of party workers. When it was clear that his Jamaica Labor Party had won a 13-seat majority in the 53-seat Parliament, he permitted himself the first smile all day. Jamaica, he said, would now go forward “under my leadership.”

That was a phrase dear to Sangster. A bachelor, a former farmer and solicitor, he has moved for 18 years in the shadow of Sir Alexander Bustamante, 83, the volatile, white-maned political patriarch who founded the Labor Party 23 years ago and led Jamaica to independence from Britain in 1962. Bustamante served as the country’s first Prime Minister until two years ago when, ailing and half-blind, he transferred his duties—though not his full powers—to Sangster, then his Minister of Finance.

Before Bustamante decided to resign six weeks ago and call general elections, Sangster patiently had to permit him to keep making decisions; he also had to wage a fight to keep deputy leadership. And, though the Labor Party expanded its Parliamentary majority, its winning margin over the socialist Peoples National Party was less than 1% of the 435,000 popular vote.

After the returns were in, Sangster visited the ailing Bustamante, who had been propped up on a couch by Lady Bustamante and friends. Learning of the Labor victory, Bustamante said: “Well, I expected it. I was behind it.” Self-effacing even in his long-awaited moment of triumph, Sangster remained silent, but later he said: “We’ll try to follow his footsteps, but we will do it subject to the changing patterns of life.” At last, Donald Sangster had become his own man.

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